An online reading group ('TIS a reading group!) to bring together friends, and friends of friends, who aren't able to be in a conventional reading group due to constraints of time or geography.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Kite Runner

Long time no post due to technical difficulties which John has found a way round. But I’ve been able to read all of yours and am staggered by the unanimous vote of confidence you gave Kite Runner. Not liking it at the start I promised to give it 50 pages but couldn’t get beyond p40: the writing I found pedantic; the plot predictable (even before p 30 it was obvious the boys would be brothers); and the characters B&W. A friend said she similarly had found it heavy going – not because of the content but because of the lack of writing quality, and with that I gave up. But, respecting your cumulative opinions as I do, I must obviously have another go, if Emily will relend please.

Abandoning Kites, I picked up Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, which was everything Kites was not: beautifully written; original and unexpected plots and good characterisation. I would recommend it to you all if you have time to read anything off-blog. It is set in Germany at the end of WW2 and for me has resonance with both All Quiet on the W Front and Homestead which many of you have read. It is a tad bleak… And then I read Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories which is nothing if not a definition of beautiful writing.